Today I went to Whislter again with my friends from Toronto and Pat. I am not very tired today, since I stay with Pat all the time on the green runs. Pat has kept up with her snowboarding skill, she is doing pretty good on wide green runs, even blue runs. Her biggest problem is on narrow green runs which connect different parts of the mountain. She is scared to made turn on the narrow run, afraid she will fall off to the cliff. It is very tried and hard to control if not changing edge from time to time. I think Pat has the skills already, just she havn’t overcome her fear. The only way to work on this problem is by taking snowboarding lessons. I can’t convince her to try turning even I can demostrate it is safe to make turns on those narrow runs. There is some woman only snowboard clinic in Whislter in Febuary, maybe I should sign her up in one of those sessions. I need to take skiing lessons myself too, I have reached the plateau of just practising by myself. It is time for me to reconsider taking CSIA level 1 again, but I need some professional opinions from ski instructors on my chance of succeed first.

Today I showed my friends around the town by sky train, since I don’t want to drive between two days going to Whislter. One of them had visited Vancouver many years ago, he really missed the osyter in Lansdale Quay, so we went there for lunch. Fortunately the osyter shop is still around and he had a dozen of fresh osyters, almost clean all the osysters in the shop. Then we tried something I had never done before, took a bus going to Vancouver downtown thru the Lions gate bridge. Then, there is a standard vancouver download tour start with Mondo Gelato, then walk along the English Bay. The guy also missed the steam clock in gas town, so I have to take him there fore photos. I don’t really understand what’s so interesting about the steam clock, especially when it is broken at the moment. We had dinner at Guu, and I am surprise they never had izakaya in Toronto. After dinner, we ran out of things to do and end up going to Metrotown. Then we have to call it a day, since we all need a good rest preparing for the 2nd visit to Whistler tomorrow.

Two of my Waterloo buddies visited me this christmas holidays. To be exact, they come over to have a ski trip in Whislter and crash in my place. I havn’t seen them for years, we used to live very close to each other in Mississauga. Together with another Waterloo friend visiting his girlfriend in Vancouver, four of us drove off to Whislter to have our first ski this season. The snow condition is not very great, it is too foggy up in the top, and worse there is no enough snow, we cannot ski all the way down to the village. I keep hearing praise about Whistler from my buddies comparing it to the ski resorts back east. I guess I quite spoiled by Whislter and take it for granted. This year, I found my skill has improved comparing to last season, my balance and movement is getting better. On our way to and from Whislter, my friends keep telling me stroies about their jobs in ATI. Now, I realise PMC is not very bad after all, there is some other company has much worse practise.

This christmas, I have a warm house gathering with my mom, my two aunties and my cousins. My thin auntie has prepared a very delicious dinner together with my mom. After dinner, we just hang around waiting for the dessert, watched TV and sing old songs karaoke. The night is quite relaxing, me and Pat enjoy the good food including abalone, bordeaux red wine and sallow nest. My only complain is there is a small dog I allergic to at thin auntie’s plase. I tried to get dog stay away from me for the whole night. At the end I still have some mild rash on my face. I hope after taking some medication, it will disappear tomorrow morning. I am fine with big dogs, like Pat’s golden retriver, but I don’t like small dogs. Not only they will cause allergy to me, they are so annoying. Whenever I see a small dog, I am so tempted to kick it. It just looks like a fur ball ask to be kicked right at the stomach.

It is Christmas Eve today. Last night when I open an ecard form a friend, suddenly I wanted to send my greetings to all my friends. I don’t like sending out ecard by putting everyone on the cc list. I took the time go thru my address book, personalize each ecard I sent out with related greetings. It took me almost 2 hours to go thru my friend’s list and determine whom I wish to keep in touch with. I am so happy that I received over ten replies this morning. I havn’t talk to some of them for a long time, it is good to heard from them. I think next year, I will try to send real christmas card to some selected ones. I always wanta to send real christmas card, but keep push off to ask for the mailing address until its too late. Maybe next year, I will send out a mass copy email in october, and ask anyone who wish to receive a real card from me response with their address.

Tonight I have home made dinner with Pat and her family. After washing the dishes, we played the Dogoploy game I bought Pat, which is a Monoploy with breeds of dogs replacing properties. It’s kinda fun to play silly games sometimes. At the end I went bankrupt by stepping on Pat’s Golden Retriever. I joke that since I can’t afford the rent, I will pay it with myself. How ironic.

We went to midnight mass at St. Mark’s college in UBC. It’s a long drive but the atomsphere is quite nice. Pat may not agree with this, but in my opinion going to church in Christmas and Easter is the absolute mininium requirement of being a Catholic. I really like going to midnight mass, and listening to the all familiar christmas songs. The carol I like most is “O Holy Night”, probably rooted in my mind from the the movie Home Alone when I watched as a little kid.